DENNIS — A jury awarded a local championship golfer $15,000 in compensatory damages Thursday for suffering discrimination at a town-owned golf course.

Elaine Joyce of Yarmouthport had sought $500,000 in damages, according to the attorney who represented the town.

The award in U.S. District Court in Boston was far from the penalty Joyce had sought as a deterrent to anyone discriminating against women at public golf courses, she told the Times on Thursday afternoon.

"It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for but I think I achieved my goals — to stop the discrimination against women at public golf courses," she said. "In the end, it wasn't about putting money in my pocket. If you discriminate, there's a huge price to pay."

The price will be paid by the town of Dennis, which will pay at least a portion of Joyce's legal fees as well as its own legal costs, she said, adding the town has "spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending itself, including a good deal of money after last March's decision found the town liable."

The town's insurer is expected to cover the legal expenses, according to court records.

The $15,000 award was clearly satisfying to Leonard Kesten, the attorney who represented the town and called the jury's decision "appropriate" and Joyce's demand "outrageous." He declined to describe Joyce's demand, but last year he said it was for $500,000.

"This case never should have happened," Kesten said, adding the town had repeatedly tried to negotiate with Joyce and resolve the dispute before it became a federal case.

Last March, District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton agreed the town of Dennis had discriminated against Joyce, then 45, when golf officials didn't allow the software company employee to play with her father in a 2007 men's pairs tournament at the town-owned Dennis Pines Golf Course. Joyce lives in Yarmouthport but plays with her single-digit handicap in Dennis, where she owns property as a real estate trustee.

Joyce's lawsuit establishes a precedent. Earlier Massachusetts court decisions had found in favor of women who said they were treated differently than men in play at private golf and country clubs. Gorton's decision last year expanded the protection to publicly owned golf courses under federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

The District Court decision does not require all public golf courses to have mixed-gender tournaments, Gorton said last year in a footnote which carefully limited his ruling to the facts of this specific case.

But when public facilities discriminate on the basis of gender, then deny that they did, "they will not prevail," he said.

After the decision last March, the next question for a jury was "how much should she be compensated for the violation of her rights," Kesten said Thursday.

He said the town had offered "substantially more" than $15,000 in damages after last March's ruling.

Joyce said Kesten's "laughable" offer was for a little more than $15,000 for damages and all of her legal fees. The amount wouldn't cover a fraction of her legal costs, she said.